The present game is designed to entertain, provide amusement and educational stimulation for both adults and children. The game improves numerical skills as well as developing hand-eye coordination and manipulative ability. The game has a sufficient element of chance coupled with an element of strategy whereby the game can be played and enjoyed by opponents of widely varying ages and/or ability.
In the basic form, the game comprises a playing board which is designed to have a plurality of essentially parallel slides mounted to the upper portion thereof. An individual player will move a single slide during his turn to capitalize upon the scoring strategy. In short, the game allows a player to place markers upon the board following a throw of the dice or the use of some other random selector. During each turn, a player places a marker at a prechosen strategic position such that he can move a slide to either increase his particular score or attempt to disrupt his opponents strategy, thus reducing his score. Since the players alternate in taking turns, the chance portion becomes predominate.
The prior art known to the inventor includes U.S. Pat. No. 3,229,388 granted Jan. 18, 1956 to Smith. This patent deals with an educational device including, in particular, a set of blocks having numberical indicia. The goal of the game is to build upon a basic block unit wherein the variable to be observed is one of length which corresponds to multiples of the unit.
Another patent known to the inventor is that granted to Stone on Sept. 1, 1970 and bearing the U.S. Pat. No. 3,526,045 which deals with a segmented movable number line including a plurality of counters, each independently slidably mounted on a frame, and including a number marking on each one of the counters. The numbers on adjacent counters form a progressive number series. The combination of the various elements results in a calculator usable by children in teaching numerical concepts.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,788,644 granted to Evans on Jan. 29, 1974 includes a board apparatus for playing a mathematical game and the board includes apertures adapted to receive the stem of a marker. The player utilizes dice to determine the number of markers encompassed with each move and the game encourages success in developing mathematical abilities.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,808,708 granted to Huskin on May 7, 1974 deals with a playing board having a number of parallel rows of cubicles. Each of the cubes have on their face problems in multiplication or division and on the opposite face answers to those problems. Sliding board pieces contain answers to the problems enabling the player to check his solutions and other sliding pieces contain indicia representative of fractions or elementary slide rule markings to teach their basic operations.
With the above noted prior art in mind, it is an object of the present invention to provide a game combining chance and strategy both from the offense and defense position which is attractive to players within a large span of age groups or abilities.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a game wherein the players will use a definitive preconceived approach to capitalize upon scoring and thus win a game, however, the rolling of the dice or other random selection device incorporates a sufficient element of chance to preclude the complete domination by one player or strategy.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a game wherein the hand/eye coordination and/or manipulative skills of the player are enhanced.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide a game which, although teaching basic skills, involves a sufficient amount of chance and strategy that players of dissimilar ages and/or intelligence can compete effectively.